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THE CABRANZA DEBACLE 



HERBERT INGRAM PRIESTLEY 

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Associate Professor of Mexican History and 
Librarian of the Bancroft Library 

With the Compliments of the Author 



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[Reprint from the University of California Chronicle, July, 1920] 



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1920 



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THE CARRANZA DEBACLE 



Herbert Ingram Priestley 



The initial steps in the movement which resulted in the 
flight and death of President Carranza of Mexico began to 
be chronicled in the daily press dispatches as early as the 
end of last March. "Weeks before that time some of the 
details of the proposed revolution were passed about by 
word of mouth in the United States, the contest in Sonora 
being freely predicted along the lines which it actually 
followed. It is thus evident that the waning power of the 
government had been accurately gauged during the winter, 
while Obregon was making his political tour of the Re- 
public. During the year 1919 the power of the Carranza 
regime was apparently at its highest, though that power 
was never complete nor supported by a large or significant 
part of the population. It will be remembered that Venus- 
tiano Carranza was recognized as de facto head of the Re- 
public of Mexico in October, 1915, after he had refused to 
abide by promises he had made not to assume the presi- 
dency, and had quarreled with Francisco Villa and others of 
his companions in arms against Huerta. Recognition was 
bestowed, not in full confidence, but in the belief that 
Carranza led the party which had made the most effective 
campaign against the disorders prevailing and which was 
most likely to effect the pacification of the country. 



Adequate justification for that recognitioa would have 
developed had there come speedy pacification of the dis- 
turbed areas, had the power been consolidated on a civil 
instead of a military basis, and had a reasonable if not a 
grateful attitude toward the United States been shown. 
But pacification was unduly retarded by the policy of the 
military arm, which persisted in treating banditry and 
rebellion as opportunities for self -enrichment not to be too 
suddenly ended. Thus the military arm, largely revolution- 
created to serve as the bulwark of the government, which 
had but a precarious tenure in the public esteem, became the 
weakness that worked the downfall of the chief under whose 
sign manual it pillaged the country. 

This military situation was abundant cause for non- 
fulfilment of many of the promises under which the Car- 
ranza revolution was waged. There were many contribut- 
ing causes in internal affairs. It is true that the program 
of the revolution was more than amply laid down in the 
Constitution of 1917, but the Constitution was never really 
in force and acceptance within the controlled area. Its 
Utopian provisions for bettering labor conditions were never 
enacted into law or generally observed under decrees. Its 
emancipation of the peon class was nullified by the con- 
dition of semi-warfare which pervaded most areas outside 
the large cities. The financial condition of the country left 
much to be desired, although commerce was growing, 
although tax receipts were higher by one half than they had 
been in the heyday of the Diaz regime, and although busi- 
ness was conducted almost entirely on a basis of metallic 
currency. The educational system had. been left in the 
hands of the states and municipalities, even in the Federal 
District, and only in a few places — notably not in the 
capital — did it receive adequate financing and attention. 
Promised improvements in the operation of the courts still 
loft the people "hungering and thirsting for justice"; the 
jails have been continuously crowded with untried prison- 
ers. The legislative branch broke with the President in so 



far as it could. It refused to pass the legislation recom- 
mended by the Executive, and withdrew the extraordinary 
war powers under which Carranza had been exercising dic- 
tatorial control. The City of Mexico, given rein as a "free 
municipality, ' ' one of the shibboleths of the revolution, was 
remiss in police regulations, sanitation, education, admin- 
istration of justice, and in control of public morals. The 
President had violated the ballot, imposing his own candi- 
dates as governors in numerous states, and had used these 
gentlemen to further his design to seat his own candidate 
as his successor, had arrested the partisans of Obregon, and 
imprisoned, upon flimsy charges, the members of Congress 
who opposed him. 

In external affairs the non-payment of the interest on 
the national debt, and the observance of a neutrality in the 
Great "War which veiled only too thinly a wish for German 
success fathered by the thought that a European friend 
might rise up to check the hegemony of the United States 
upon the American continent, combined to complicate a 
difficult situation. Coupled with this mistaken foreign 
policy were the effects of the attempt at "revindication" 
of the rights of the nation to the subsoil deposits of petro- 
leum. It would be bootless to discuss here the merits of the 
oil controversy. The question is open to debate as to what 
the legal history involved may actually be. But the con- 
flict grew tense when revindication attempted to affect 
retroactively lands held by foreigners in full titular owner- 
ship under the laws of the Diaz regime, which permitted 
private ownership of subsoil mineral oil. Possibly the new 
legislation would have left owners in possession and per- 
mitted profitable operation of oil properties; but suspicion 
that the opposite course might be taken, backed by Amer- 
ican ideas of the sanctity of contracts, threw the oil pro- 
ducers into an opposition which was extremely embarrass- 
ing to the government. 

Thus in both internal and external affairs Carranza, in- 
stead of addressing himself to righting conditions which 



menaced the life of the body politic, undertook to revolu- 
tionize the government upon a socialistic theory while a 
corrupt military oligarchy and a none too honest set of 
civilian officers vitiated whatever there was good in the new 
plan by the most cynical grafting. 

It is a mistake to think, however, that these attitudes 
and conditions were entirely new, or entirely chargeable to 
Carranza. Many of them are inveterate evils which will 
not disappear suddenly under any government. There had 
been a perceptible improvement in some of them during 
Carranza 's incumbency, and those who hoped for and be- 
lieved in the ultimate development of ability by the Mexican 
people to govern themselves felt that the first great step in 
improvement would come ^rom the demonstration of 
stability through peaceable transmission of the presidential 
power. That was the one great hope of the Carranza 
regime. In the mind of the President the essential thing 
was to transmit the power to a man who would continue 
his own program. He made the fatal mistake of quarrel- 
ing with the most popular man of his own party, who was 
ambitious to succeed him, and who had a stronger influence 
over the military than did the President. If nothing suc- 
ceeds like success nothing fails like failure to recognize the 
possibilities, or rather the probabilities, of a situation. 
Upon Carranza 's power to transmit the presidency to a suc- 
cessor who could command the confidence of the faction in 
control depended the justification of his program. The 
debacle, then, was caused by the personal attitude of the 
President rather than by the many contributory influences 
which made his tenure so precarious. 

The political campaigns of would-be successors have 
been waged for a year and a half; their acerbity has con- 
tributed not a little to the unrest and disorder in the 
country. Early in January of the present year the well- 
known fact of Obregon's lead in the race was reiterated by 
Mr. Gerald Brandon in the Los Angeles Times in sub- 
stantially the following words: "Obregon is the only man 



who has defeated Villa. He is a radical, and has fathered 
several startling attempts to amend the present Constitu- 
tion, thereby earning the enmity of Carranza. He has 
practically admitted that he will start a revolution if there 
is not a fair election. If he does so he will win, as the 
majority of the military are for him." 

About the same time it began to be announced that 
Ambassador Ignacio Bonillas would presently return from 
the United States to Mexico to quicken his candidacy, 
which had the backing of the President, and which had been 
talked of for six months at least. Almost simultaneously 
General Pablo Gonzalez surrendered his command in the 
south to begin his formal campaign, which had been thought 
to have Carranza 's support before Bonillas was brought 
forward as a civilian candidate who would free Mexico from 
her "plague of military men." 

Late in January press dispatches said that a force of 
picked military police had been sent to Mazatlan and Her- 
mosillo in Sonora to fight Yaqui supporters of Obregon, 
who controlled that state politically. These traditional 
enemies of whatever central government may exist had been 
on the warpath several months. Obregon was at the time 
in Guanajuato, and his interests were being advanced in the 
United States by General Salvador Alvarado of Yucatecan 
fame, who had been recently arrested for fomenting social, 
revolution, but who had escaped. On February 11 an 
assembly of governors in the capital, called by Carranza, 
issued a declaration that the coming elections would be held 
peaceably and honestly, they themselves vouching mainten- 
ance of law and order. Pablo Gonzalez issued a manifesto 
advocating friendly relations with foreign powers, abolition 
of the military caste, and liberal amnesty laws. Carranza 
again reiterated his declaration that he would not hold the 
presidency after expiration of his term, and that if no 
executive were elected Congress would name one. The 
Bonillas candidacy began to develop active character. 



While all these discordant appeals were being made to 
the small political element, the country continued in serious 
disorder, evinced by murder of several Americans and 
others. In the midst of such conditions it was announced 
that the American State and War Departments were keenly 
interested in a report of the arrival at Agua Prieta, in 
Sonora, of a large force of troops presumably sent to pre- 
vent the armed forces of the State from supporting 
Obregon. These State forces were under Adolfo de la 
Huerta, the governor, who is a young man of radical ten- 
dencies, a follower of Obregon, and now Substitute Presi- 
dent of the Republic. 

At this juncture, de la Huerta announced that a strike 
was threatened by the employees of the Southern Pacific 
de Mexico. This had been predicted a full month before. 
While Bonillas was being given an apparently enthusiastic 
welcome in Mexico City on March 22, Obregon and Gon- 
zalez began to try to harmonize their bitter antagonisms in 
order to oppose him. Obregon had need of the alliance. 
By the end of the month General Dieguez stood ready to 
invade Sonora to seat a new civil governor, C. G. Soriano. 
The Obregon soldiery was preparing to repel the invasion, 
as the Sonora group had no will to see their government 
taken from them in the way Carranza had taken possession 
of the states of San Luis Potosi, Guanajuato, Queretaro, 
Campeche, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, Jalisco, and Vera 
Cruz. 

On April 3 the railway strike began. Carranza threat- 
ened to operate the road with soldiers. This was the signal 
for the officials of Sonora to begin revolution. On the ninth 
they anticipated Carranza by seizing the railway and operat- 
ing it with strikers, whose terms were conceded. The State 
officers next seized the customhouse and post office at Agua 
Prieta and garrisoned the town. The legislature in an all- 
night session voted to secede and to constitute the "Re- 
public of Sonora" an independent entity until they were 
assured that the rights of the State would not be infringed. 



At the moment of the uprising Obregon was under 
technical arrest in Mexico City charged with complicity in 
revolutionary plans being fomented by one Robert Cejudo. 
The military operations of the new Republic were placed in 
charge of General Plutarco Elias Calles, who had recently 
resigned from the national cabinet to enter the campaign 
for Obregon. His immediate task was to repel invasion by 
Dieguez, who was expected to advance from Chihuahua by 
way of Pulpito Pass. But the Chihuahua forces, after 
having been denied railway transportation from El Paso to 
Douglas, refused to advance. The attempt of Carranza to 
deal with the revolution from the eastern side was thus 
rendered futile. 

In the meantime Governor Iturbe to the south in Sinaloa 
announced that he was "still loyal" — he should have been, 
for he had become a multimillionaire by virtue of his gov- 
ernorship — but neutral between Mexico and Sonora. He 
was looking for a safe place to fall. The troops of Sonora 
now began to advance upon the Sinaloa border in order to 
bring that State into open revolt and control the coast. 
They "took" Culiacan on April 17 and pressed on to 
Mazatlan and Tepic. By April 15 Obregon had escaped 
from the capital in disguise with General Benjamin Hill 
and had made his way to the southwest. He was said to 
have established wireless communication whereby to direct 
the revolution. On April 18 the State of Nayarit indorsed 
the Sonora movement ; all the interior towns of Sonora 
adhered to the cuartelazo of Agua Prieta, and practically 
all the Yaqui and the Mayo Indians of the regions did so 
as well. Michoacan to the south soon joined in defection ; 
in Chihuahua numerous army officers cast their contem- 
plated lot with the rapidly growing movement to change 
the national leader. On April 21 Benjamin Hill, the 
"original Obregonista, " was said to have advanced to Con- 
treras, on the outskirts of the capital, with troops from 
Guerrero. Zacatecas was confessedly in rebel hands. 
Tuxpam in the oil regions was threatened, troops at 



10 

Linares revolted, and Mexico City was cut off from com- 
munication. 

The Liberal Constitutionalist Party thereupon made a 
demand that Carranza should relinquish his office, and, 
under declarations contained in the "Plan de Agua Prieta," 
set up Adolfo de la Huerta as supreme commander until 
such time as the states joining Sonora should make a choice. 
A provisional president was to be named as soon as the Plan 
should be adopted by the Liberal Constitutionalist Army. 
The Plan announced a policy of protection to all citizens 
and foreigners and the enforcement of all their legal rights. 
Especially was emphasized a determination to develop in- 
dustries, commerce, and business in general. Finally, the 
antiphonal strophe habitual in the Mexican system of gov- 
ernment by cuartelazo was added: "Effectual suffrage, no 
re-election." 

The legal government continued to camouflage the situ- 
ation by absurd claims of strength, but its position was 
serious. The effort to send troops into the north failed, and 
Governor Iturbe of Sinaloa threatened to evacuate that 
State and Nayarit unless he could be reinforced. Obregon 
was nearly ready to advance from Guerrero to the capital ; 
more than 50,000 troops had joined the prospering cause. 

On the last day of the month "Washington received dis- 
patches saying that Carranza was planning to leave the 
capital, but at the same time it was known that Pablo 
Gonzalez had cut rail communication with Vera Cruz. He 
had recently been obliged by Carranza to withdraw his 
candidacy in order to compel Obregon to follow suit, it was 
claimed. This may have influenced Gonzalez to assist the 
cuartelazo. He had left Mexico City on a feigned errand, 
and, once safely outside, had revolted with numerous sub- 
ordinates on May 3. A rumor spread that Carranza \s 
remaining generals, summoned to advise him, had recom- 
mended that he resign not later than May 15. The enemy 
now numbered twice the total of the government forces. 

On May 5 President Carranza issued his last manifesto. 
He declared that he would fight to the finish, that he would 



11 



not resign, nor turn the power over to anyone not his duly 
elected successor ; he said : 

I must declare that I consider it one of the highest duties which 
devolve upon me to set down affirmed and established the principle 
that in future the public power shall not be the prize of military 
chiefs whose revolutionary merits, however great, may serve to 
excuse future acts of ambition. I consider that it is essential for 
the independence and sovereignty of Mexico that the transmission 
of power shall always be effected peacefully and by democratic 
procedure, that the cuartelaso as a means of ascent to power shall 
forever be abolished entirely from our political practices. And I 
consider, finally, that the principle must be kept inviolate which 
was adopted by the Constitution of 1917, that no man shall rule 
over the destinies of the nation who has tried to climb to power 
by means of insubordination, the cuartelaso, or treason. 

While this declaration was being penned, and was being 
given to the press by Luis Cabrera, the man who above all 
others is responsible for the unpopularity and the mistaken 
attitudes of Carranza, the exodus had been planned, and 
was immediately put into execution. 

It was an exodus, not a flight. Professor J. H. Smith 
has said of the departure of President Herrera from Mexico 
during the stormy days of the Mexican War, that he "left 
the palace with the entire body of his loyal officers and 
officials, his mild face and his respectable side-whiskers — in 
one hired cab." Had Carranza limited his contingent to 
those who were genuinely loyal a cab might have sufficed. 
The proposal was to transfer the government to Vera Cruz, 
whence so many hard-pressed forlorn hopes have been able 
to ' ' come back. ' ' Twenty-one trains, collected and equipped 
at great effort, were to carry away 20,000 troops, carloads of 
records, and millions of treasure. The dispatches said 
27,000,000 pesos were taken, but, after the disaster, Pastor 
Eouaix, ex-secretary of agriculture, upon returning to 
Mexico on May 18 with the booty, said that it was worth 
100,000,000 pesos. In addition to the troops, there was a 
carload of employees of state, the Cabinet, the Supreme 
Court, and the Permanent Commission of Congress. 



12 



Misfortune attended every step. There was delay and 
confusion in getting off. Attacks on the convoy began 
almost at once. Before they passed La Villa the last 
four trains were cut off. Tools for tearing up the track in 
the rear had been left behind during the first attack, and 
a wild engine, driven against the fugitives' last train, 
wrecked artillery and aviation equipment, and killed or 
wounded railway employees. After delay at Apizaco on 
May 8 and 9, the loyal forces went on to San Marcos. 
Beyond that place they engaged revolutionary troops, tak- 
ing four hundred prisoners. On May 12 they reached 
Rinconada, where they learned that General Guadalupe 
Sanchez had gone over to Obregon, deserting General 
Candido Aguilar, the President's son-in-law, and that there 
was no longer hope of a stand at Orizaba, where Aguilar 
was to hold the ways, for he, deserted, had fled. 

Finally, after his trains were useless, and his forces had 
been defeated at Aljibes, Carranza, maintaining imperturb- 
able sangfroid, gave up hope of escape by rail and set out 
for the Puebla mountains, trusting perhaps in the aid of the 
Cabrera family, which was strong in the region. 

"While making his way northeastward, presumably to- 
ward some small gulf port, he was betrayed by one Herrero, 
a "general de dedo" of sufficient obscurity to suggest that 
he might have been someone's agent. The President was 
done to death while he slept with his dwindled retinue in 
a mountain shack at Tlaxcalantongo, in the State of Puebla. 

Thus far bloodshed had been insignificant. Obregon, 
w r ho had entered the City of Mexico unresisted on May 8, 
had sent flying columns to capture Carranza, issuing re- 
peated orders that he was not to be injured, and endeavor- 
ing to induce him to surrender upon reiterated assurances 
of personal guaranties. All overtures had been spurned. 
It was evidently the intention to spare his life. The con- 
siderations of humanity, of old associations, even of recog- 
nition itself, demanded this. The pig-headed country gentle- 
man, who was unsuccessful at managing the mature men of 



13 



his organization, knew how to play his last card so as to 
diminish his opponents' profit to the minimum. Obregon 's 
tart reply to the telegram sent by some thirty followers of 
Carranza announcing the final disaster, was evidently ad- 
dressed as much to the public of Mexico and of the United 
States as to the remnant of the lost cause. The revolu- 
tionary party has taken energetic means to demonstrate its 
non-complicity in the deed. 

Most of the official family which remained with the 
Primer Jefe to the end were imprisoned for a time in 
Mexico City, but nearly all have now been released. Gen- 
eral Juan Barragan, the youngster under thirty who was 
the military genius of the last regime, escaped, and fled 
across the border. 

The body of Carranza was brought back to Mexico City 
on May 24 after an investigation, partly financed by 
Obregon personally, which disproved the claim of Herrero 
that the President had committed suicide. ' He was buried 
in the cemetery of Dolores, according to his known desire. 
Mexico gave itself up to uniform manifestations of regret 
and respect. It was anticipated for a time that the revul- 
sion of feeling would develop into armed opposition to the 
revolution ; there have been armed clashes in the north, and 
a rebel named Osuna is still in the field, but his forces are 
small and he has already met some defeats. None of the 
rebel activity has the purpose of vindicating Carranza. 

On May 25 Adolfo de la Huerta was made Substitute 
President by the reassembled Congress. He is to serve the 
unexpired term of Carranza, that is, until the end of Decem- 
ber. He is one of the young men of the north, an active 
revolutionist for years. He has been a decided radical, 
interesting himself in labor legislation, and has announced 
his interest in the proletariat even since his raise to the 
presidency. His friends say that his ideas have been tem- 
pered by the acquisition of power, and that he has re- 
nounced his inveterate animosity toward capital. He has 
recently been a devoted follower of Obregon, who is said 



14 



to be "obeying" the new regime from private offices in 
Mexico City. Several members of the new cabinet are 
fairly well known to the American public. The Minister 
of War is General Plutarco Elias Calles, who was for a 
time in Carranza's cabinet as Secretary of Commerce and 
Industry ; the latter position is now held by Alberto Pani. 
The treasury has been intermittently in charge of General 
Salvador Alvarado, whose career in Yucatan as an inde- 
pendent Socialist governor, and later as an opponent of 
Carranza and supporter of Obregon, has made him well 
known. It is said that his connection with the Obregon 
government will be transitory. That may well be, for he 
is an individualist like Obregon; but he may not willingly 
subside. The ministry of Communications and Public 
Works has been entrusted to General Ortiz Rubio, that of 
Agriculture and Fomento to General Enrique Estrada, 
while the name of General Jacinto B. Trevino has been con- 
nected with various cabinet positions, as have those of 
Antonio Villareal, Morales Hesse, Santiago Martinez 
Alomia, and others. Foreign relations have been committed 
to Miguel Covarrubias, who has had a diplomatic career 
of some forty years. Representation of the new government 
at Washington is in the hands of Fernando Iglesias Cal- 
deron. Felix F. Palavicini, old war horse of the early 
revolution, editor of El Universal, a strong aliadofilo during 
the Great War, and capable publicist who habitually finds 
himself on the winning side of affairs, has been given a 
mission before numerous courts of the Old World. The 
legations at Madrid and Mexico have been raised to the rank 
of embassies, and the choice of ministers is now being made. 
The new rector of the University of Mexico is Lie. Jose 
Vazconcelos, well-known educator and litterateur. It seems 
likely that the educational system will become organized 
under federal control, which will place it in better position 
than it ever has been. Effort is being made to obtain a small 
number of American teachers. 



15 

Public opinion in Mexico has received the new order 
with optimism. Among Americans it is looked upon as a 
reorganization of the power within the group which Car- 
ranza himself led, but the sentiment is frequently voiced 
that "anything is better than Carranza." The change will 
develop rather in personal attitudes than in declared prin- 
ciples of government. The men who lead the new move- 
ment have been known by word and deed as pronounced 
radicals. The swing of the pendulum has been steadily 
toward more radical idealism ever since Independence. It 
has been noticeable, however, that in all cases of actual 
acquisition of power radicalism has been left in the stage of 
theory, and pronounced materialistic conservatism, for the 
benefit of those who govern, has usually eventuated. 

In the United States the Obregon movement has been 
received with favorable comment in circles in which Mex- 
ican business interests are important. The leading article 
in the May number of The Americas, published by the 
National City Bank of New York, says in part : 

Now that events in Mexico are moving toward final settlement, 
there is every reason to believe that the plans repeatedly made 
and postponed may be put into execution, and trade relations estab- 
lished between the business men of this country and the merchants 
of Mexico that will be permanent and profitable to both groups. 
... In spite of troubles that may come during the next few months 
and outward appearances that make it appear that Mexico is merely 
keeping up its favorite pastime of revolution and civil war, there 
is sound reason for believing that constructive influences are at 
work and that a happier and more prosperous epoch is nearly at 
hand. 

It would be futile to expect that mere change of leader- 
ship from one coterie to another within a small fraction of 
the politically significant element of the population will 
work an immediate miracle. There is still a period of 
anxiety to pass through. The congressional elections have 
been set for the first Sunday in August, and the presidential 
election for September. Most of the governors have been 
changed and the municipalities reorganized, with Obre- 



16 



gonistas in place, hence the machinery is well arranged for 
peaceable elections. Obregon is given a fair field by the 
definite renunciation of Gonzalez. If the old conservative 
element put forward a candidate, the action will be merely 
nominal, though the problem of Villa and his old defenders 
of the Constitution of 1857 still continues to perplex the 
new government. 

The entire situation cannot be predicated on the per- 
sonality of Obregon, however. The new Congress will be 
potent in capacity to promote discord, as was the old. The 
new official class as a whole is new and untried. When 
such difficult problems as the oil controversy come before 
Congress there will be great divergence of opinion. The 
oil men have asked to have the Carranza decrees annulled 
and the program of legislation definitely settled. Among 
the Mexicans there is no unanimity concerning annulment 
of the decrees or solutions of numerous problems raised by 
Article 27 of the Constitution. President Huerta's recent 
favorable decrees are of course only temporary in their 
effect. 

There is a general disposition on the part of many foreign 
powers to consider the new provisional government as the 
legal successor of the old one, and the question of recog- 
nition is assumedly not to be raised, at least as far as actual 
practice is concerned. The Mexican papers express con- 
fidence that the United States will announce recognition at 
an early date. They indicate surprise at the proposals con- 
tained in the report of Senator Fall's committee, and it is 
not to be expected that acquiescence in all the provisions of 
that report would be forthcoming without irritation. 

Furthermore, it is to be borne in mind that solution of 
the international problem lies not alone in readjustment 
of material contracts. Prosperity, successful commerce, 
increased wages, elevated standards of living, all proved 
ineffectual to satisfy a newly developed industrial middle 
class which rose during the Diaz regime. The magical pros- 
perity of the past year has not made the nation peaceful 



17 

or happy, for below the prosperous classes exists the mass 
of the Indian population, untouched by the wave of political 
change that has gone over its head, unhelped by promises 
unkept, uninterested in its own elevation. If genuine 
peace has come, if material prosperity is assured, now must 
begin a long earnest effort for the establishment of justice 
and for the development of an adequate system of moral 
and social education, an effort which may result in the 
amalgamation of the peoples of Mexico into a national unity. 




015 991 359 4 



